February 23rd, Newsletter Article

POLYMER STRIKER-FIRED COMBAT PISTOLS



Model 1911s feel great, can be made superbly accurate, and have a proud and strong heritage.



Other steel-framed guns have been produced that fulfill a need for a great variety of applications.



But polymer, striker-fired, semi-automatics have moved in to be serious contenders in providing the market with tough, reliable, dependable, and accurate combat weapons.







Move Over 1911



Glock has replaced, in many ways, the 1911 as a standard for the modern combat handgun. And now, along with Glock, Sprinfield's XD Series, and Smith & Wesson's M&P series, there are three offerings that the market can depend on for providing serious combat handguns.



There are other polymer-framed striker fired semi-autos that arguably may fit in with this group. But these three are accepted as being predictably effective firearms.







The Best Gun?



One of the questions that you and I are asked by friends and acquaintances, is, "What's the best gun for (fill in the blank)? Most of us are used to answering, "Well that depends"...(and go about determining purpose and physical needs).



While purpose and physical needs are still important criteria, most people are looking for guns to be used for self-defense.



Subsequently, for many of us, the answer may come much more easily. We can pretty much answer, a Glock, Springfield XD, or S&W M&P, and feel fairly secure in our answer. The best, as has been determined by most Law Enforcement agencies, and most gun professionals, winds up being, one of those three.



It's that easy.







But Why?



1. Reliability - These guns have been the subject of more torture tests...it's almost like television guns shows and you-tubers are on a quest to see what else they can do to one (or all) of these three guns. They have been buried in mud, frozen in ice blocks, dropped off of buildings and out of vehicles, run over by trucks, shot with other guns, and even blown up to test the limit of their reliability. Theses guys do much more to their "test" guns than we will ever do to ours, and in most cases, the guns hold up remarkably well.



2. Feed-ability - Like Glock, the XD, and the M&P, seem to chew up all kinds of ammo. Before, semi-autos usually only performed well with a particular type of ammo. But these new guns take just about everything. This puts most self-defense and combat ammo within the reach of us. If we want to use a particular type of ammo, it'll probably run in these guns.



3. Accurate - Out of the box, these combat guns are not necessarily ready for long-range target shooting. But for combat accuracy, or being able to hit, at the ranges in which we will most likely encounter trouble, all of these gun are spot on. They get the job done. And that's what most of us want.



4. Controllable - Even though the sub-compacts can bite a bit into the web of the hand under recoil, it normally is not as bad as many .380s, 9mms, and .38s. It is believed that the frame, being polymer, actually compresses upon firing, and acts a bit like a shock absorber, taming the recoil somewhat. Getting subsequent shots on target is usually fairly easy with these guns.



5. Affordability - At under $800 for most of these, they are in the range of the middle-class. We don't have to spend $3000 to get a gun that does all of these things.



Adding to these five qualities, these guns in their most recent iterations, come with different-sized backstrap inserts. That means we can customize the "fit" of the gun, within three options, to our hands.







Other Opinions



Handguns Magazine has this article comparing the three (and the H&K SP2000).



Jeff Quinn has a great website in which he yaks about all things guns. He provides a practical, and I believe, an objective view of the guns he reviews. Below he reviews:



S&W M&P



Glock



Springfield



Clint Smith has been a Springfield XD supporter for a long time. When Springfield began offering a thumb safety on select models you couldn't keep him from sounding off.







Summary



It is my, any many other's, opinion that you really can't go wrong with one of these guns. They work very well for most of us.



Finally...an easier answer to which gun is best!

February 9, 2012 Newsletter Article

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING



Most gun owners don't seek out training.

They assume they will rise to the occasion.

Unfortunately, that is rarely what happens.



Lt. Col. Dave Grossman writes on his extensive research on how people respond to a violent confrontation in his book On Combat. Below is an excerpt.



One police officer gave another example of learning to do the wrong thing. He took it upon himself to practice disarming an attacker. At every opportunity, he would have his wife, a friend or a partner hold a pistol on him so he could practice snatching it away. He would snatch the gun, hand it back and repeat several more times. One day he and his partner responded to an unwanted man in a convenience store. He went down one isle, while his partner went down another. At the end of the first aisle, he was taken by surprise when the suspect stepped around the corner and pointed a revolver at him. In the blink of an eye, the officer snatched the gun away, shocking the gunman with his speed and finesse. No doubt this criminal was surprised and confused even more when the officer handed the gun right back to him, just as he had practiced hundreds of times before. Fortunately for this officer, his partner came around the corner and shot the subject.



Whatever is drilled in during training comes out the other end in combat. In one West Coast city, officers training in defensive tactics used to practice an exercise in such a manner that it could have eventually been disastrous in a real life-and-death situation. The trainee playing the arresting officer would simulate a gun by pointing his finger at the trainee playing the suspect, and give him verbal commands to turn around, place his hands on top of his head, and so on. This came to a screeching halt when officers began reporting to the training unit that they had pointed with their fingers in real arrest situations. They must have pantomimed their firearms with convincing authority because every suspect had obeyed their commands. Not wanting to push their luck, the training unit immediately ceased having officers simulate weapons with their fingers and ordered red-handled dummy guns to be used in training.



Consider a shooting exercise introduced by the FBI and taught in police agencies for years. Officers were drilled on the firing range to draw, fire two shots, and then reholster. While it was considered good training, it was subsequently discovered in real shootings that officers were firing two shots and reholstering--even when the bad guy was still standing and presenting a deadly threat! Not surprisingly, this caused not just a few officers to panic and, in at least one case, it is believed to have resulted in an officer's death. Today, in most police agencies, officers are taught to draw, fire, scan and assess. Ideally, the warrior should train to shoot until the deadly threat goes away, so it is best to fire at targets that fall after they have been hit with a variable number of shots. Today, there are pneumatically controlled steel targets on which photo realistic images are attached. The shooter might fire two rounds and the target falls, or the exercise can be designed so the target is supposedly wearing body armor and remains standing even after it is shot multiple times. To knock it down, the shooter must hit it in the head. Even better, in paintball or paint bullet training, the role players are instructed not to fall until they have been hit a specific number of times. You do not rise to the occasion in combat, you sink to the level of your training. Do not expect the combat fairy to come bonk you with the combat wand and suddenly make you capable of doing things that you never rehearsed before. It will not happen.